President Bush may not have governed as a TrueConservative™ down the line for the last seven years, but this exchange with AP Radio's Mark Smith highlights President Bush's belief in those core conservative principles of Freedom and Choice.
Shorter Mark Smith: "Why aren't you emulating the Magi Emeritus, Jimmy Carter, and asking Americans to wear sweaters and eschew heat and air conditioning, and sit at home instead of driving places?" [raised nose, satisfied look]
Not shorter, but actual, President Bush: "Well, they're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not."
"The consumer's plenty bright, Mark," Bush continued. "The marketplace works."
Well said, President Bush. Well said. As The Directors said on Monday, the essence of the GOP as a Party, and Republican Conservatism as an ideology, is Republicans' belief that "People must be free to decide how to direct their lives for themselves, and then be responsible for their choices."
It was a nice lesson in conservatism for Mr. Smith, AP Radio savant. I wish we'd gotten a chance to view his reaction to Bush's response, so that we could have seen whether he was still gazing down his nose at the President, or was studiously ignoring the very necessary lesson.
h/t Ace
Though frequently inarticulate and not always the adherent to free market principles that true conservatives would like him to be, President Bush's pithy statement on the ability of the consumer to decide for himself how much to regulate his energy consumption hits the nail on the head.
A nice corollary to that statement is John McCain's statement today to the NAACP that he trusts poor African Americans to make their own choices with respect to their children's schooling. It sounds like school choice will be a centerpiece of the McCain education agenda. If he wants to blaze a path through the middle and working class electorate, this is one surefire way to do it.
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